Passé composé or l'imparfait
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David M.Kwiziq community member
Passé composé or l'imparfait
Not sure when to use above tenses
Asked 5 years ago
Hi David,
Think of l’imparfait as ‘used to’. In the text, “She used to sleep all the time’; “she used to find it hard to get up”; “Her mother used to have to entice her with a hot chocolate”; etc. It’s l’imparfait here because she talking about how things were in general.
Then there are the ‘one-off’ events that are not describing the past, we use passé composé here. “At a family dinner I fell asleep”; “I woke up with my head on my plate”; “Everybody laughed.” Here, it’s passé composé, « Je me suis endormie » ; « je me suis réveillée avec la tête dans mon assiette » ; « Tout le monde a ri ».
Hope that helps a little.
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